


To Conquer

by DashOfPeppers



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Everyone is Dead, Friendship, Gen, No Romance, Post-Apocalypse, expect no happiness here, you have no power here gandalf the grey
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-09 20:27:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15275538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DashOfPeppers/pseuds/DashOfPeppers
Summary: "And throughout the morn of fire and a solid whip, the people of Nirn would remember only one thing: The Dragonborn never came." A tale in which Alduin wins, and yet does not.





	1. Prologue

_ When misrule takes its place at the eight corners of the world, _

_ When the Brass Tower walks and Time is reshaped, _

_ When the thrice-blessed fail and the Red Tower trembles, _

_ When the Dragonborn Ruler loses his throne, and the White Tower falls, _

_ When the Snow Tower lies sundered, kingless, bleeding, _

_ The World-Eater wakes, and the Wheel turns upon the Last Dragonborn. _

 

There was a prophecy once, carved with ancient hands into the walls of a fortress now crumbling beneath a mountain, that spoke of Nirn’s demise and ruin. There will be a beast, blackened in ash and blood, that will reign the world with the might of his jaw and the cry from his throat. Those who would defy him would writhe in fire. Those who would not would still share the same fate. The land would break, and those who called it home would break along with it.

None cared, of course. There was nothing to concern themselves with. For, if the prophecy was true at all, there would come the Dovahkiin. The man who would smite the great fiery beasts in which reigned the skies would conquer the world back. There was nothing to fear; nothing to prepare for. Life would continue on, peacefully and contently. The crops would grow. The birds would sing. All will return as it once had. There was nothing for the races of Nirn to fear.

How fickle prophecies are, in the end.

Alduin came indeed. And with him, the world crumbled. The forests burned, the deserts desecrated, and the kingdoms shattered.

When the world ended, it was swift.

Skyrim was most unlucky; they were first to see Alduin--the first dragon in all senses. He emerged first from Helgen. A beast of the night, as black as soot and the darkest of shadows. No one knew how he came to be, or how he was there. He burned the village to the ground, its wood still smoldering when the rest of Skyrim met its end. Riverwood came after; there was no warning to save a single soul from that beast. Still hungering, still thirsty for the blood of men, the World Eater saw Whiterun. The great Dragonsreach, home of the proudest of Nords, fared no better than the rest.

Then, Skyrim met its end when Alduin’s brethren emerged from the ground, ash and roots and mud still clinging to their scales as they sucked in their first breaths and then flew above. They found the strongholds, the cities, the homes, and there they saw only a feast laid out for them. The Stormcloak rebels fell, drowning in ash, as did the Imperial soldiers. The Civil War was lost to the hall of Ulfric Stormcloak and General Tullius. Instead, it was replaced with the terror of the winged creatures. In a fortnight, the frozen tundra was bathed in the screams of the Nords.

By the time the rest of Tamriel received word from Skyrim, given in hastened scribblings and panicked words--by the time the Imperial legion sent for more men to assist Solitude, by the time the Altmeri Dominion sent agents of their own, it was already too late. The strongholds were ruined. The cities were burned to the ground. The homes, once so filled with the laughter of children, the song of drunken patrons, and the crackling of fireplaces, were utterly silent. All that was left were the bodies--piles upon piles upon piles, all quiet and cold in the snow.

For a moment, Tamriel went still in shock, for Skyrim was now the land of the dead.

Cyrodiil was next to collapse; the bravery of the Imperials was no equal to Alduin's morbid lust for destruction. The Black Marsh followed. It too fell swiftly. Morrowind's defeat was faster than most; the devastation of Red Year had yet to pass. Hammerfell came next and with it High Rock. Elsweyr's defenses were admirable but crumbled like all the rest.

At last stood Valenwood and the Summerset Isles. The ancient elves, stubborn in pride, rallied for one final, hopeless battle in a nameless plain in Cyrodiil. Armed with bows and swords, magic burning from their fingertips, and dressed for battle, they stood and defied the dragons with their combined might.

They failed. The survivors were either devoured for those who were too slow or sent scuttering back, hiding in a forest too thick for the dragons to carve through or even burn and there they stayed until they rotted into nothing. With their defeat, it was the end of the End. 

Alduin had won.

The world turned to ash by the dragon fire, and the sky morphed into the blackened smoke of the broken world. Those most unfortunate to survive were enslaved by the ariel beasts, to serve as their livestock or their entertainment. Uncanny creatures, which had always remained hidden in the depths of the earth, stepped foot into the open and were free to roam the gaping world. With their presence, stragglers, rebels against the dragons, or simply survivors were more easily discovered -- and punished -- for their failure to submit. Those who escaped such horrors were left with their own. The plains were vacant and cold. There was little plant life or clear rivers, smothered so deeply in the debris of what was lost, nothing grew pleasantly. Food, or at least what could grow, was foul, corrupted by the soil of desecrated lands. Supplies were impossible. What little grew green remained belonged to the dragons; and they hoarded it. Gold became as worthless as dirt. Weapons and blankets a man would murder for. And murder they did. Often the dragons needn’t rely on themselves or their allies to ruin their opposers; they ruined themselves in an effort to exist. Soon, there was little left.

All that remained untouched was the sea, too wrought with its own beasts to concern itself with the ways of the dry land. Those who lingered wept, dwelling in the hells of the enemy. And throughout the morn of fire and a solid whip, the people of Nirn would remember only one thing:

The Dragonborn never came.

Alduin had won.


	2. 1 - Wolves and the Many Ashes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Excuse the awkwardness of the prose. It's all experimental, but there are times where I think I embellished a tad too much.

 

Despite the emptiness that dwelled within the barren mountains of Eastmarch, the land was never silent. There always was a wind. A cold, deathly wind that brushed through the mountains, foul with the rank of decay and ash. It wrung the trees bare of their leaves and poisoned the air with its ill semblance. The thick, blackened sludge that formed the ground, made from the ashes of the plants and wildlife that burned from the fires of Alduin, always felt the breeze’s cold touch on its rot. Ripples from the darkened rivers, marred with the carcasses of fish and greater, more terrible things, formed from the wind, disturbing what little peace could be cherished. Shrieking hollowly in the night, the wind was a reminder of bane and terror to all who listened. For it was always there, and as long as it remained, so would the state of Nirn.

Ulfric cared little for the wind. It tore at his back and stole away what little warmth clung to his form. It beckoned Falmer, draugr, and other fell things into the open with its rank odor, creatures all too appealed to such foulness. With its haunting voice, it sent him into fitful, sleepless nights, huddled deep in a cave on the hard, broken floor. 

He cursed the wind often, and if it had a voice, he was certain it would curse him back.

Ulfric sat huddled at the edge of his cave, its mouth gaping out to the open mountains, stripped bare of its greenery and covered in a fine sheet of ice. The afternoon sun, its light still marred by the grey clouds swathing its form, embraced the ashen wasteland in a cold and joyless fashion. He watched the light lower ever so slowly, pack slung over his shoulders. The pitiful bag, thin and worn beyond its days, seemed it would break apart at the slightest tug. Its lacing was torn at some areas, their patches messily restrung in some feverish haste. The animal skin itself had lost most of its color, turning to a muted silver by its constant use. Yet, Ulfric considered it and its contents more valuable than all the jewels Tamriel could provide. His knife, if it could be called as such, was a sword rent of its length, shattered halfway down the blade to form a crude jagged point. It had been found at the ruins of some destitute town, and it was most prized -- despite its mangled form -- for the mere fact that it kept him alive. Without a sheath, it hung at the side of his pack, swift to retrieve should any danger arrive; which was always. The dagger’s whetstone resided inside the base of the pack, and above it laid a meager blanket. Threadbare and torn, it would not offer warmth to a mere child. Ulfric kept it all the same, for the comfort it provided. And lastly, above that, his waterskin. Regularly it was filled with snow, or whatever could be called the foul cold dust that rained from the sky. When it melted, most of it dried his tongue and made him choke. He imagined that he gambled his life every moment he packed it with more. But by the mercy -- or curse -- of Talos, he remained without ailment each morning he swallowed it down.

The afternoon waned. Ulfric shuffled closer to the entrance of the cave, peering through his mass of hair, its blonde sheen gone years ago. 

The nights of Skyrim were riddled in horrors. Although Falmer had found the outside world more accommodating to their tastes than the rocks they had used to reside under, they still found the sun and what small light it gave ill to their blinded eyes. Nighttime was their abode, where the air was less thick yet just as dark as their caves. They crawled out at the last light of dusk, and there, they preyed on insects or rodents. Their sharp ears caught any breath out of place, and should an intruder reach their domain, death was given slowly. Draugr joined them at times, but they preferred their crypts and tombs over the living world. Other ghastly creatures came as well; spiders and trolls, though not as often as the Falmer.

The daytime was worse. Here, sabercats and packs of wolves roamed the mountainside, hungry and searching for flesh to feast upon. The trolls and spiders came, too -- a plague at all times, their meals left in ditches or their webs wrapped about the branches of trees. But they were not the worst. They were not what kept Ulfric in his cave, wary-eyed and stiff.

For in the day, when the light peered through the mountainside and bled into the air, the dragons came awake.

Their cries hissed and echoed above them all, more terrible than the wind, causing even the wolves and the trolls to cower and linger close to their homes. Their flapping wings were louder than a mammoth’s trumpet, to be heard like the heavy beating of a drum even leagues away. Many did not see them, so far in the sky and hidden in the clouds. But all could hear them, and all were afraid.

Falmer by night, dragons by day; one could despair and simply remain in their hole, for how else could one travel about? Yet remaining in one place was folly. Trolls and Falmer always searched for new caves or old ones that they have not returned to in an age. If they found a survivor, they either ate them, tortured them, or -- with the more intelligent minds -- offered them to the dragons.

But Ulfric knew a way. In the scant hours before dusk, and in the small light before dawn, both the dragons and Falmer were away, either still asleep or moving back to their holes. And in these pockets of freedom Ulfric moved with all the haste a Nord could conjure, from cave to cave, knowing their patterns and their abodes, where to sleep and where not to. 

He did not know how long he lived in the Eastmarch to know these things, or how long it took to realize these patterns; perhaps because he did not remember. But he knew, and that was all that mattered. 

The sun was setting; Ulfric could see its crude shape beneath the thick grey curtain in the sky. He peered about him, dagger at hand, rolling onto the balls of his feet. He could feel the sludge seep through his thin shoes, blackening his feet, as his eyes scanned for life about him. He took two steps forward, his breath a whisper in the air, and listened. Distant shuffling, a snarl or two, then silence. Ulfric hunched his shoulders, gripped his pack tightly with cold, skinny fingers, and exposed himself out into the open.

He did not sprint. He had not the energy for sprinting, having only on small mushrooms he scavenged from abandoned Falmer caves to eat and fuel his bones. Instead, it was a soft, steady canter, hunkered low and feet patting stealthy on the soft ground. His ice-blue eyes scanned the area carefully, adjusting his course behind groves of trees to block any creature’s line of sight in case they spare a glance at the world about them. Ulfric’s heart thundered in his chest as a familiar and constant anxiety gripped him every moment he revealed himself to the sky. He used that anxiety to broaden his senses, listening for noises and searching for movement, sweat forming around the hilt of his shattered sword.

He despised the moving of cave to cave. He perhaps despised it more than the wind. Every several days he did so, leaving tracks in the mud for all to see, leaving his scent in the air for all to follow. The creatures of the Eastmarch must have certainly known he was there. They simply were not quick enough to find him.

Often he laid false tracks, running in wide circles or backtracking from one point to another. It absorbed what precious time he had, yet it was a necessary precaution, and one he always took. He scooped sludge over his face and arms to hide his thin, pale form and rid himself of the heavy scent of sweat and humanly odors that only beasts could detect. Occasionally he paused to fill his waterskin with a patch of snow he found to be white enough to swallow. He was never lucky enough to find food on his travels. Thus, he nibbled on what few mushrooms he had left and continued on with the sunlight at his back. 

He traveled for miles, passing several caves entirely as he climbed up rocks and rolled over pits. He could smell the thick rot of whatever creature lived there and see the slight light that was given away by the fires formed from within. His grip on the sword constantly readjusted itself, the foul mixture of sweat and ash forming at the hilt. At times he readjusted his pack to a more secure position as he clamored up a particularly difficult cliff. 

Chest heaving with exertion, Ulfric paused and glanced through his matted hair to the sky. Light was fading. Soon the Falmer would come out. The Nord clasped his jaw in a tightened knot and hastened his movements. The stones loosened beneath his feet, and his fingers latched tightly to the stone. He swung his weight to a more accommodating position and inched upward. His next cave was only a mile away. His anxiety grew all the more, causing his arms to shake in anticipation, and he wet his dry lips.  He heaved himself over the cliff, taking a moment to breathe, before straightening.

The rock cracked beneath him, and more stones loosened. Ulfric lost his footing and fell to his back. He cursed as the stones rolled beneath him and caused him to slide too quickly. The ground was coming closer swifter than he wished, and then another rock struck him in the chest. He coughed and spun, and suddenly nothing was beneath him. His eyes flew wide and he threw his arms around, scrambling for purchase. A gust of wind tore through him. He gasped and cried out.

Then the ground slammed into him, and all the air left his lungs. 

His limbs fell limp and his mouth gaped open as he struggled to suck in and out, but nothing would enter. They were like stone, unheeding his commands, and the world spun around him. Some part of Ulfric allowed him a groan as he curled into a ball. He waited for it all to cease, beckoning his chest to move as it burned like coal in his throat.

He was given a small breath. It was like honey to his body, and he relished it. He inhaled again, and more air entered. His fingers curled into a fist around the sludge as he hissed in another breath. Then another. 

He felt the ground press against his cheek, and he slowly rolled to his knees. His arms were quivering. His chest still burned, and a sharp pain lashed through him. He pressed his hand to it and felt it throb beneath the touch. He prayed to Talos a rib was not broken. 

Ulfric glanced behind him to see the small landslide he caused, and he cursed at its sight. Several rocks were severed and scattered onto the ground, a black indent where his filthy skin slid against the surface. It had made noise, and now it had made evidence of his passing. He shakily stood to his knees and cleaned away what signs of his movement he could, passing wary glances at the fading light. He readjusted his bag, and prepared to sprint to the cave. 

But something was ill in the air. He froze and ran his hands about himself, feeling something was amiss. He brushed his hands over his pack, and felt nothing strapped to its side. His dagger. Where was his dagger?

Another foul curse left him, a whisper of anger and restlessness. He bore his gaze about the fall, scouring for the weapon. Ulfric riffed through the ground with quick and skittish movements, conscious of the waning time. Where was it?  _ Where was it? _

The wind came, the accursed thing, pelting at his back as he shoved aside the stones in search of any sheen in the pile. Minutes passed, precious minutes that he could not spare, and he gnawed on the terrible thought of leaving the dagger behind. A sound echoed behind him, and he swiveled around. His breath ceased. 

There, in the now growing darkness of the dusk, stood a wolf. No more than several hundred feet, its eyes gleamed in the still light, tongue lolling out from its maw and haggard fur clinging to its sides. Its gaze was trained on him, head bowed low in a near casual acceptance, but Ulfric knew hunger in a beast’s eyes. Body still and silent, Ulfric reached for a sharp rock. He could not hear the wind over the rushing blood in his ears. 

The wolf tensed. Ulfric’s fingers brushed against something uncannily sharp, and he released a shaky breath from his lips. They both were still for a moment, and a moment more. 

Then, the beast howled. 

Ulfric snatched his knife with bloody fingers and ran.

Responding howls flittered in his ears, running cold his blood and his breath thin. He swiveled his head, scouring the area in which the cries came, and rushed beyond them, his legs pounding beneath him and the wind throwing his wild mane into the breeze. He felt more than heard the wolf gain on him. It snapped its teeth at him in savage hunger. Its paws raked through the earth. He lept over a fallen tree, the canopy of branches drinking the final day’s light away and the stray limbs swatting at his cheek. The world blurred around him and he flew, the forms of mountains and ash mere whiffs of grey and brown beside him. 

Motion ahead of him. He skittered to a halt at the sight of black fur and a heaving flank, a second wolf that leapt in front of him. A strangled sound escaped him and he spun around. The other wolf was nearing, head still bowed low and eyes gleaming. Ulfric tore to his left, away from them both. Another howl in the air. Another wolf there, sneering through its dripping maw. He ran to his right. 

He might have howled himself if he had the energy to release more than mere heaves of panicked air. A final wolf, white in coat and lean in form, slunk from the stony mountains in front of him, bellowing and snapping its maw. 

Sweat beaded his forehead as he turned, the pack of wolves lowered to their haunches and circling. Ulfric gripped his dagger with shaking hands and flicked it warningly at them. They simply snarled and came closer. He froze.

They lept. Dirt flew.

Teeth were at him, snapping and snarling, and a burning stench swathing over his face as its hot misty coating slapped against his bare cheek. He cried out and threw a wild and vicious swing with his dagger. He felt resistance, a sudden tear, then warm liquid on his hand. A scream exploded beside him, and the wolf fell down. A weight flew onto his back and he felt his legs buckle and stumble, more hisses of breath and bays, and sharp daggers sank into his shoulder. He screamed and shoved against the weight, falling onto his back and crushing the form. The noise at his ear came as an explosive yelp, and Ulfric rolled off of the form to stab it. Teeth found his pack, tugging it sharply and throwing him to and fro. The man struggled fiercely, feeling the straps loosen then snap. The force propelled the wolf backward and him forward, into the waiting jaws of another beast. Crashing into it, he wrestled it off him and forced his fingers against the mouth, its tongue wiggling over his hand and smearing it in hot saliva as he forced it further and further apart, before it gave a terrified, pained shriek. Fire sunk into his ankle, swathing his leg in agony. Another pained howl escaped the lips of the man and he stabbed at the jaws in which clasped him down. It felt the metal’s sting and shrank away with a cry of anguish, freeing Ulfric and sending him scrambling for a nearby tree. He clung to it and, in a moment of automatic instinct and panic, began to climb. 

His fingernails drove into the bark and bloodied them as he scrambled upward, the wolves’ breath hot at his legs. His trousers were snagged in their grip, and Ulfric kicked furiously at their faces. He felt their bones buckle beneath his feet at the blow. Howling and backing away, their momentary pause gave the Nord enough time to heave himself to the upper branches of the tree. He peered down.

Three wolves leaped at him, their claws raking through the bark and snapping at the branches. The tree beneath him vibrated beneath the force of their weight, but it did not sway. The fourth limped behind, a dark liquid coating its backside, watching its companions in reserved hunger. Ulfric simply gasped in breath, fingers wrapped around his bleeding ankle and willing away the throbbing pain as the tree shook.

Hours passed, or perhaps minutes. The wolves continued to search for ways to climb the tree, but to no avail. The branches remained high on its trunk, and the core was strong. No matter how long they ran their claws into its bark, it would not break. Soon, they stripped it bare and dulled their claws, allowing them no further purchase to cling to. 

They watched Ulfric with hateful eyes and sat below the tree. He knew they would wait forever. 

Ulfric, still atop the tree’s branches, felt his heart continue its thundering rampage as his arms quivered like leaves in the wind. His hand was still clasped around the hilt of his knife, and when he tried to loosen the grip, the fingers would not yield. Laying his throbbing back against the tree’s bare and blackened trunk, Ulfric continued to choke on his panicked breath, laying his free hand on his chest to try to still it.

It took ages to calm his breath. It took longer to cease his shivering. And once he did, all he could do was listen to the sounds of the waking creatures scurrying from their abodes and feel the cold sensation of despair sink into the root of his bones.

Night had come.

* * *

 

When he opened his eyes, he did not expect the world to be so bright. Years of living from cave to cave always welcomed him with a dulled, darkened room and a deep humming moan as the wind brushed across the cave and allowed its breath to echo through. He was not accustomed to the light and lack of hollow sounds about him, and he did not recognize the cold breeze that caressed his face with the softness of a lover’s touch.

In another life, and in another world, Ulfric would have called it pleasant. But, when the sight of ash, broken trees, and a barren waste of a mountainside came to meet him, he did not enjoy the view it presented. Nor did he relish the newfound stench the wind gave him so early in the morn. 

He blinked, squinting at the unfamiliar amount of sunlight, and eased his back upward as he rubbed his eyes, trying to belay the heavy comfort of slumber from his form. Suddenly, the ground shifted beneath him, feeling round and empty on either side of him, and he made the dire mistake of swaying. 

No further floor supported him as he moved and tilted dangerously off his branch, the tree cracking at its sudden weight, the noise shuttering down the trunk. An anticipated growl murmured below him, and Ulfric spared a glance down to find the pack of wolves still at the base of the tree, watching him with their unwavering gazes. Ulfric’s heart lept to his throat as his balanced slipped away, and he tightened his legs around the branch, wrapping his fingers over adjacent branches to keep himself steady. The last of his slumber left him when the wolves ran their tongues over their chops hungrily, their weight shifting excitedly on either paw. 

Ulfric straightened immediately, head snapping up and shoulders moving under each laborious breath. Under the muted tones of a waking mind, he riffed through his memory to understand the entirety of his situation. He glanced to his right and found his hands still gripped to his dagger. Both the hand and the metal were coated in a dark crimson liquid, already dry and glued to his skin. He looked below him to find the wolf he had stabbed awake and conscious; it too was coated in blood, and appeared far more weary than the others. Unfortunately, it was still alive.

The ground showed obvious signs of the scuffle that occurred last night; it was swiped and tousled in mud, pools of blood here and there, with clumps of fur or human hair littered about the site. The wolves held their scars, the white with a long stripe of red bleeding from its face, and another grey wolf’s mouth still bruised and slightly out of alignment. Their fur was matted in filthy clumps that clung to their thin skin, and only then did Ulfric notice the ribs prodding from their coats. He felt no pity for their hunger, and instead hoped they would rot in the cave of a troll.

The pain came then, a sharp fire from his ankle, and Ulfric rose it to find it caked in blood. Deep gashes marred the pink flesh, and he detected a foul odor emit from it. Ulfric’s stomach roiled at the thought of an infection, and decidedly hid it from his mind by wrapping his free hand around it. His shoulder and back throbbed, and his chest was bruised from the fall from the cliff he had climbed. When he moved his tongue, it stuck to the roof of his mouth. Talos, he was thirsty. Ulfric reached behind himself to better access to his pack, but his expectation for relief faded when his hands closed around nothing. His stomach fell to his soles as his mind conjured images of what might have happened to his precious bag. He glanced downward fearfully.

The wolves again growled hungrily at his movement, and he scanned over the dirt they stood upon carefully. Swiveling his eyes around, he scoured for the dull black pack in the equally dull black sludge. He leaned over on his branch -- making certain his grip was ever true on it -- to eye further into the sludge. A despairing sigh left his lips when he found it.

The pack was torn to pieces and the various items cast out, strewn into the dirt and filth of the ground. His blanket was tattered and coated in ash, his whetstone lying feet away, and the mushrooms trampled under the uncaring wolves’ paws. But the blanket and whetstone he could retrieve and continue to use, and the mushrooms he could resupply himself with at the next cave. It was the waterskin that upset him. Its form was torn open, the precious supply of cool water spilled into the dirt, and its skin was ruined beyond all repairs. Water was a treasured commodity, and without it, Ulfric would perish.

The Nord slumped over the branch, defeated and swallowing down the thick taste of ash on his tongue. The wolves pranced about the tree anxiously, their growls deep in their throats. Ulfric watched them with half-hearted fear and toyed with the thought of jumping down to meet them.

They all sat there for some time. 

Then, in the nigh noon of the day, the wolves stood straight and paced about anxiously. Their movement startled Ulfric out from his reverie, and he relocated his dagger in case… well, in case of anything. They sniffed the air and muttered faintly to each other in their own language, glancing again at Ulfric and then about the area. Their twitches seemed hastened and the manner in which they growled brought Ulfric’s hair to prickle at the back of his neck. 

A thunderous beat flittered through the air. Like a drum. It was brief, hollow, but it ran across the Eastmarch like the flowing wind. Then, another beat came. And another. Cold. Deep. Strong.

The wolves did not pass a second glance to Ulfric when they ran. Whatever warmth resided in the Nord’s blood ran cold when he watched them go. 

A pack of wolves did not leave its prey. It never did.

Then, down came an echoing roar. Against his own admonition, his eyes flew upward, into the dark-ridden sky.

It was there. A mere blackened speck against the grey sky, but every beat of its wings could be felt vibrating through his chest, every sound could be echoed across the expanse of Skyrim. He did not need to see to know what it was.

His knees buckled on their own accord, feeling like sloshing water within his legs. A chill crept through him, seeping through his skin and into his very bones, spreading across his veins. He swallowed, his parched tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth, and felt a shuddering breath leave him. When the dragon howled again, he was already gone from the tree.

Slamming into the ground with a painful thrum, Ulfric snatched his whetstone and blanket with such haste he left with several handfuls of sludge along with them. The ground sucked at his shoes, the blood bubbling beneath the soles of his feet. He slipped and nearly tumbled into the filth, his hands coating themselves in a grotesque mixture of crimson liquid and mud.

He ran, the wind tearing through his mane. By Talos, he ran.

Fire burned at his feet. It felt like dragonfire, and for a moment, he remembered stones raining down from above, shrieks bleeding into the air, and the insistent cries falling from his lips to urge the townspeople and soldiers out, away from the smoldering rubble. The shouts from above; arrows loosing from their strings. The song of metal, the hiss of breath, the slow intake of a building inferno within a scaly maw--

A branch snapped against his cheek, shattering from its tree and falling to the dirt. Thundering footsteps pounded into the ground, echoing through his feet. He swiveled his head to find shadows dancing through the trees, throwing clouds of ash into the foul air. They did not spare a glance at Ulfric with the scream of the winged creature pealing from above. 

The chill began to gnaw at his face, cold daggers seeping into his skin. His eyes watered at the harsh breath of the wind. Like fire burning at his skin, his throat grew raw and chest unyieldingly thick, as if he were to lift boulders from his ribs after each breath. Blood and wind roared through his ears and at times he could not discern it from the dragon above. His legs began to move like lead, heavy and impossibly weak. 

But the panic fueled him. It seared through his limbs, a wave of sharp ice clawing at his flesh and shrieking at him to  _ run _ . 

Run he did. For how long, he did not know. But he knew at one moment it had been morn, and by the next moment he looked toward the sky, the sun bled through the clouds to cast a sickly golden shadow over the mountains. 

Afternoon had come and gone. 

He was still running.


	3. 2 - Of Snow and Rubble

Darkness had seeped into the land hours ago. A cold, silent chill lingered in the night, the creeping mist of the mountains swathing the bare trees in a thick, impenetrable fog. Sheets of snow lathered the sickly mud in their own white pallor, gripping resolutely onto the mountainsides and groves. Trails of hungry beasts were days old, and none were fresh. The mountainside lost its rivers and forests to be left with a barren, ever-climbing slope of ice. There was no wind. There were no ill creatures found lurking in the shadows; they made no noise, no fires, and no hunting parties.  All was as still as death. 

In the mass of an unbroken chill, silence reigned.

How Ulfric missed the wind. Although foul, its rank stench and eerie howling concealed what wanted to be forgotten. How the silence ground at him, baring its fangs into his soul. 

_ You are lost _ , it whispered.  _ You are forgotten. Forgotten and alone.  _

Ulfric’s faltering footsteps were thunderclaps in the hush of night. His threadbare blanket was wrapped tightly over his huddled form, hiding his thin wan figure from the world. Much of the cold air stole away what little warmth the cloth could preserve. His dagger and whetstone could perhaps be found somewhere within the grasp of his fingers, but they were so numb Ulfric could not be certain they even functioned. The breath that slithered from his chapped and bleeding lips came as clouds of mist, swathing over his face in a brief, blissful warmth before fading away. 

He had abandoned his flight hours ago. He swayed with each footstep. The weakness that came with days of no food or drink grew too strong; his legs would give away and he would tumble to the ground, snow spraying about him. At times, he would simply remain there, cheek pressed against the painful cold, and simply wait for sleep to take him. His head buzzed, and the more often he looked past him, he understood less of where he was or what he was doing. Sometimes his eyes would droop, and the chill would pleasantly leave him. The dark land would grow even darker, and for a moment, he would feel comfort.

Then he would hear a thrum, so distant yet too close, echoing in the night. Be it his imagination or reality, Ulfric did not know. But he would already lurch to his feet before his eyes snapped open, and he would be on the move again, heart thundering in his throat.

Much of the fear, the urge to run, had belayed pain of his wounds. But, the lapse was cruelly short-lived. 

Soon, the wounds introduced themselves once more to Ulfric, his ankle  _ searing  _ in agony. A warm wetness continued to trickle down to his heel and onto the snow, leaving a long trail of crimson in his wake. Each step brought a sharp spasm of pain jolting through his leg, sewing a renewed state of misery into his form. The wintry weather only coaxed the pain into a sharper sting that sapped the strength dry from his limbs. It smelled worse now. A stronger  _ fetid  _ stench that rose into his nostrils and ran them raw. Ulfric imagined walking may become impossible by morning. 

He had not mended it on the trail; he would not mend it now. Not with the beating of wings still heard behind him. Not when still he had time to distance himself. Sovngarde take him before he be found by those scaled beasts again. 

But as darkness drew on, and the fickle paleness of the moon leaked through the clouds, the Nord found himself more on his knees than on his feet. The sky became the ground, the ground the sky, and soon he was not certain which he stood upon. He struggled to blink the exhaustion away, ice crusting around his eyelids.

When he opened his eyes again, the moon and stars were gone, and the sun peaked out from beneath the mountains. 

He heaved in a gasp. 

Everything was numb. Snow interlaced itself in his hair, melting and then freezing into a solid nest of hair and ice. His face, frozen by the snow pressed against his skin, ached, but he feared if he moved it, it would shatter to pieces. The thin cloth of a blanket tossed over him was stiff--stiffer than the bark of a tree, solidified in its folds and how it draped--and enveloped with more snow. Whatever was not covered by his blanket was coated in a thick sheet of frost, so cold it burned like fire against his skin. His tongue felt like sand in his mouth, dry and cracking, and he tasted iron. Even his stomach -- especially his stomach -- pulsed with the agony of hunger.

A pained groan escaped him when he moved his arms. Like weighted metal they traveled, responding but a little to his commands, the fingers shifting with the speed of a dead ox. Ulfric maneuvered them beneath him to push himself upright, the weakness of slumber and of starvation clutching to his muscles. Struggling to his feet (how his ankle cried in protest), he gathered his supplies with near-lifeless digits and prepared to stumble on his way. He stopped when he realized he did not know where he was.

The fog had cleared. The trees in which had dappled the Eastmarch were gone, the land utterly devoid of their darkened skeletal shapes. The leagues of barren soils of ash were replaced instead with a thick sheet of ice and snow that stretched to the very sky. Lining the landscape stood mountains, tall and strong, the morning sun kissing their faces and throwing darkened shadows across the pallid snow. Ulfric spun around to look behind him and noticed something on the ground. 

Blood. Trickles of it dotting his every footstep, a beckon any being within miles to catch the scent and the trail, leading ultimately to the wounded human himself. Ulfric scowled and glanced at his ailed leg. It continued to bleed. It was a minor alleviation to find it not bleeding so profusely, but the relief was smothered out by the ugly pink flesh surrounding the gouge, and a foul-smelling liquid oozing from it. He grimaced and, fingers fumbling, struggled with his blanket to tear off strands. He wrapped what few slivers he could afford around the wound, not bothering to clean it. Every shift of his muscle tore him with agony, and he bit down every hiss he could hold. 

Not unusually, there were no birds to sing their tunes in the air, but there also stood no other creature in sight, hungry and scouring for man flesh. There was no doubt that he had attracted unwanted attention. He left too much behind, made far too much noise, and traversed so slow that his scent lingered. Falmer and spiders should be upon him, which gnashing teeth and blood-shot eyes, overpowering him and dragging him to their dismal caves. The grip around Ulfric’s dagger tightened. 

When he glanced to the sky, he found it lacking of its shadowy master. He heard no thrum or cry from above, nor any noise to alert him of another presence. The revelation did not comfort him. He folded his whetstone into his blanket and offered one final gander toward the distant mountains behind him.

The rocks moved.

It was less of a move than a shift, but they did so all the same. He could only see the shadows of the sun dancing over them, but one shifted faster and more sporadic than the rest. Swaying like a tree in the wind, it acted very much as a rock should not.

Ulfric stopped breathing when he watched it straighten and fold its grey wings over its flanks. 

He collapsed to his belly, flattening himself against the snow-ridden ground, when he saw its head stretch into the expanse of the mountains. He cursed silently in a thousand Nordic oaths, form pressed into the ice in an effort to merge with it and remain unseen. The wind caressed his back with a mocking tenderness, whisking through his hair and scurrying the crimson snow into his eyes. His gaze bore into it, fully realizing its position. With his heart thundering in his throat, his eyes followed the trail of blood and felt his stomach cave when it edged closer towards the dragon.

It had followed him. His scent had led it closer, its stench lingering but perhaps not strong enough for the beast to immediately find him. The beast shifted further down the mountain, a mere silhouette against the stones with its grey scales melting into the rock, closer toward his trail. He could almost feel the deep hiss murmuring in its throat.

Ulfric slid up to his knees, eyes still fixated on the beast, as he eased himself to a low crouch and shuffled backward. He bit his lip as he felt the shock of pain lurch up through his leg, wincing at the crunch of snow beneath his weight. Every breath of sound screamed into the air. He moved farther away. 

Motion told him the dragon raised its head once more, and with each straining second, Ulfric inched farther away. The ground began to dip beneath his feet and he narrowly lost his footing, clenching his teeth to bar away his hiss as the snow slid around him. The view of the mountains was lost beneath the top of the knoll, and it was then that he noticed his heavy footprints seeded deeply into the ice. Hastily, he unslung his blanket over his shoulder and smothered it over the impressions, gliding the snow back into place. The hill dipped beneath his feet as he stumbled along, crouched low to the ground with soft breath flittering from his lips. Foot by foot, Ulfric moved lower down, ears nearly aching for the sound of a dragon’s hiss. 

Feet became yards. Yards became miles. The wind constantly pelted at his face, and he soon recalled why he ever so much despised it. The foul stench swathed his nostrils again, the sharp peal of its voice echoing through the bluff. The thundering of wings came again, signaling the beast’s flight once more. Glancing upward, Ulfric found the speck of black against the grey sky, its shape far too defined to comfort him. He slid further down, flattening himself against whatever stone or cliff he could find in sight. Talos, his heart shuddered so violently he nearly forgot his wounded leg, and instead pressed his hands against his chest and mouth to keep himself still and silent.

The dragon did not leave. Worse, it did not find him. Ulfric spared few risks in his years of life, but here he could do nothing that did not lead to his death. He ducked between fallen rocks or broken ruins, but the landscape grew more barren and icier throughout the minutes, and soon that was all there was to see. 

Noon became dusk. Shadows stretched further and grew darker, but still the dragon remained. It knew he was here; it would have fled back to its holdings otherwise. 

But it could not find him. 

A shadow fell upon him, and Ulfric flinched as he felt the beast pass by. Limbs tightening in terror and pain, he staggered away, darting across the shadows with his ice-ridden blanket held above to conceal his form. The snow grew thicker against the soles of his feet, swallowing them to his knees. He shuffled deeper, farther, as the ground dipped lower and the air bit as his cheeks with a painful chill. How the wind howled into his ears, deafening him. How he loathed it. 

Soon, dusk left altogether, and darkness engulfed the land.

He saw nothing. No aid came from the stars or moon, the sky swallowed up by the clouds, and so he relied on his half-numb fingers to guide him. The hill seemed never-ending, the wind ever-remaining. 

Then, suddenly the soft ground became moist and slippery, and he tasted salt on his tongue. 

There was only one sea in Skyrim. It struck Ulfric suddenly, like the cold waves rushing to meet him. He had gone further north than he had realized, where the air was not so foul and the ash was lost in the breeze of the sea.

But then the agony of the days came back, the sharp pain of hunger clawing at his stomach, the fierce fire of his leg and shoulder, and the dire numbness that gnawed on his bones. The world tipped under his feet. He threw his arms out to support himself and they struck a wall of ice. He ran his hands along the surface, feeling the cold bite of its chill against his skin. It burned like fire when he leaned against it, following its frosty structure to maintain his sense of balance. 

The waves drowned out all sounds--even the beat of the dragon’s wings. He did not know where it went but he knew that it was close.

He walked on. Occasionally, the wall of ice would dip and disappear under his hand, leaving him stumbling in an incoherent pathway. He felt icy water slosh at his feet, soaking his trousers to his knees, before the ground became hard once more, like smooth rock that was oddly difficult to balance on, its surface swaying to and fro. A faint crackling shuttered at his feet, vibrating along his soles, the murmuring of water so close to his ears. With another step his legs sunk back into familiarly moist soil, and then the soft flakes of snow. Instead of dipping downhill, the terrain began to slope upwards, first gradually and then steeply. His legs quivered beneath his weight, and again he waved about his arms in search of support. 

He found it, a sharp, jagged surface, uneven and rough against the palm of his hand. He moved and followed it, palm tearing and cutting against its rocks. Then, the steepness lessened, the ground grew flat, and suddenly the wall curved inward. His feet, weak and numb, tripped over themselves. He stumbled and threw his hands out, fingers brushing only against air. The wind whispered past his cheeks, and he tumbled to the ground in a heap. 

Silence encased him, save for a faint whisper, sounding of wind passing through hollow walls. The air did not seize the warmth from his bones, and the painful cry of his ankle lessened. His limbs fell lax on their own accord, and Ulfric felt himself floating. His eyelids fluttered shut, and he eased his head back into a pillow of ice.

The Nord frowned. The snow was thin here, unnaturally so. Peeling his eyes open and easing himself into a sitting position, he glanced forward and found the white snow gleaming before him, the clouds waning just enough to allow the moon to offer light. A shadow hung over him, and it was then he realized that the wind did not touch him. He swiveled his head over his shoulder.

A gaping blackness stared back at him. He blinked, trying to belay whatever blindness had taken him, and squinted at the darkness. Walls stood around him, encasing him and shielding him from the chill, rocky surfaces etched out perhaps by a river centuries ago. A silent breath escaped him.

He found a cave. 

* * *

 

He used his hands to see, gliding them over the stone as he surged forward. The air was thick in the cave, but smelled more of musk than of putrid rot. He stumbled frequently on the uneven ground beneath him, its belly covered in stones, moss, and at times a suspiciously sticky substance. The ceiling was barely high enough to touch the filthy mess of hair atop Ulfric's head and at times bashed into his forehead. A throbbing headache was added to his list of troubles. 

The wind continued to moan outside.

Every several minutes, the ground would dip steeply down or climb up, higher into whatever mountain it had carved itself into. Ulfric brandished his knife in front of him, squinting warily in the darkness. Beasts lived in every crevasse of the earth to be free of the dragons, and the chances were high that this cave too held unwelcome creatures. Not that he could fend them off. Not now. The world was tilting around him without a single movement of his own, and the repugnant scent of blood had grown stronger and marred the faintly salty air. Talos, how his ankle throbbed. 

Ever still, he walked.

Soon, the sounds of the outside world grew dim and then silent, and he was welcomed only with the hollow echoes of his own faltering footsteps and breath. His palms cut themselves deeper into the harsh stone, the Nord grinding his teeth together at the scabs that were repeatedly torn off, until his fingers met something smooth.

Smooth and light, it groaned at his touch. He pulled his hand away instinctively and brandished his dagger, expecting the foreign object to hold ill will towards him. It did not move, in the pitch darkness. Stilling his thundering heart with a knotted jaw, he reached out once more, and felt at the surface. It was round, no larger than his own fist, and his fingers could wrap comfortably around it. It moaned deeply at any slight touch, and Ulfric offered his other hand to explore it. It ran upward, long and thick, and bars connected the two large poles together. He shook it lightly. It murmured at the movement, but remained firm. His fingers stilled at the cold iron that held the bars together before the realization struck him.

It was a ladder. Wooden, the rungs were cracked at places, thick layers of moss wrapping around its surface in a tight vice. When he eased himself onto it, it groaned under his weight once more, but still remained firm. 

He took three steps up it before his head banged against the ceiling, the hollow rattle of wood and metal bouncing along the walls. A deep growl of irritation bubbled at his throat, and he massaged the dull pain from his head. His hand paused when the knuckles brushed against the roof, feeling oddly circular. Again, his fingers floundered and searched, before seizing the biting metal of an iron ring. His fingers curled around it, feeling wood at the back of his hand, and he swallowed, his dry tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. Without hesitation, but rather blind anticipation, he pushed against the roof, feeling the wood buckle under the force. He felt more than heard the sharp crackling bubble behind the hinges, and as he shoved, the hatch began to yield to his command, still griping in defiance. The crackling grew agitated, roof still and stiff, feeling almost nailed in place. Ulfric, impatience climbing, summoned what little Nordic strength still rested in his old bones and heaved against the wood. Something splintered, the hatch swinging violently open, and the Nord almost lost his grip on the ladder, swinging his legs back onto the rungs. His ankle smashed against the wood, and a hot wave of pain washed over him. He bit his tongue.

Wind gnashed at his face again, throwing his mane behind him in a familiar unpleasantness. His anxiety unsated, he hauled himself over the ladder and onto the frost, straightening to gaze at the new sight before him, bleeding under the light of the moon.

Ulfric stood in a courtyard, whose once strong pillars encircling the open area had collapsed, their crumbled stone pieces scattered along the snow-covered expanse. Their pieces were charred and edges painted in black, long streaks of soot stretching over their surfaces. Towering walls, as high as Windhelm itself, were shattered and cracked, the stones strewn from their precipices and littered about the courtyard. A statue that once stood tall and proud in the midst of the pillars, was snapped in half, its hooded face coated in ice. 

The bodies were perhaps the most noticeable. 

Scattered across the expanse, their limbs were twisted in awkward positions, discarded onto the silent, deadly ice that crusted over them. Their skin was either burnt to a crisp, peppered in crimson and black, or nonexistent, the weather wearing away all flesh to leave only bone in its wake. Only small tatters of cloth wrapped around their withering limbs indicated they had possessed garments before their untimely death. They rested in the cold snow, behind the once proud pillars, on top of each other, or beneath the blocks of stone, crushed beneath the weight of rock. When Ulfric took a step closer, his feet met with only air. He glanced down to find the ground caved in, pieces of tile littering the base of the depression. A shadow of a form rested amongst the rubble, streaks of hair exposed in the moonlight. 

Ulfric looked away.

He looked towards the towers instead. Many of the entrances were either blocked with rubble or completely ruined, caving in on themselves. The two main branches of the stone building were rent to the ground. Ulfric glanced to his left, at the largest tower, which seemed to remain intact. More importantly, its entrance was accessible. 

The chill had settled deep into his bones, and his legs felt stiff as he stepped into the courtyard. The snow crunched beneath his tattered boots, the sound loud and echoing across the yard. Carefully stepping over the bodies, he crossed the courtyard and directed himself toward a massive metal door scaling thrice his own length. He rested his palm on the door, its chill enveloping his fingertips. 

The rolling waves whispered in the night, sounds of beating wings met him, and then he pushed.


	4. 3 - Of Whispers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for the outpouring of support for this fan fiction. Your comments, however long or short, mean the world to me.

The door would not move.

Against all the strains of Ulfric, it did not shift. He scowled. He pressed his weight against it and shoved, the hinges creaking ever so slightly, but otherwise as immobile as a stone wall. His frown deepened as he stumbled back and regarded it. Light from the moon kissed its surface, exposing the glistening ice that crusted over the opening and around the hinges. He shifted over and picked at it with his dagger, the crystal thick after layers upon layers of the winter’s dew formed on top of the other, swallowing the metal whole. He dug his dagger in, and slowly he began to chip away at it. 

Long minutes passed. When the ice was chiseled down to a proper size, Ulfric returned his stance at the door and pushed once more. It resisted only for a moment, the ice hissing against the movement, before he felt it shatter through the metal. With a low creak and a boom of iron, the door buckled beneath his weight and flew open. Ulfric staggered forward, hands waving about to grab onto something. His feet touched something solid and smooth, and they echoed against the walls. Ulfric stilled.

He was inside.

He first tasted musk. Thick and acrid against his tongue, he coughed and watched the dust billow at the sudden movement, peppering his face and swallowing up his limbs in grime. He took but one step forward before something sticky and stringy slapped into his face. He flinched and pulled it away with stiff fingers, the strings curling around his hands.

Webs.

They devoured the building, whatever it had been, their surfaces a bright silver against the dimming moonlight. Ulfric scowled as he brushed it away, leaning to whatever wall stood closest to him. His ankle throbbed, pounding him mercilessly with a sharp, hot pain that drank the remains of his strength away. He hissed wearily and glanced around, searching for some semblance of familiarity in the mask of webs. To his left, he found a door not so veiled in webs. 

His hands grasped for the handle (rusted, coated in a filth that swathed his fingers) and for a moment prayed that it did not need to be forced open as well. He pushed and, blessedly, it slid open with ease, only the dull whine of its hinges to greet him. Beyond it was a flight of stairs, steep and winding, cobwebs swathing over its tiles and a thicker musky air gusting into his nostrils. His jaw set itself into a knot, and slowly he began his heavy trek up the stairs.

His limbs shook each step, each sigh of breath taking an age to leave his lips. Some invisible weight crushed him at his shoulders, pressing him low to the ground and heaving for air. The webs clawed at his fingers as he slid his hand along the stone wall, wrapping about each digit in its cold sticky grasp, and the dust stung his eyes. The moon’s light disappeared beneath the walls of rock around him, casting out the light and bathing his gaze in darkness. That fickle, cold silence came back, only to be broken by the haggardness of his own breath that shivered along the walls and the occasional choking grunts as he tripped, lurching over the steps in graceless blindness. His stomach felt so empty it  _ ached,  _ with the pain of fire and ice mangled into one, searing away his flesh and exposing him in his  _ rawness _ . He could hardly hear his own heartbeat under the loudness of silence. He shivered in the dark, the webs drinking away the heat. Before he clung to whatever clothing still hung to him, his feet suddenly met flat ground and the staircase left him.

_ Light _ came. It bled through the cobwebs strung along the room, stretching out and swallowing them up in a bright, silver hue. Its brilliance nearly blinded him, and he ducked behind the shield of his hands as his eyes  _ burned _ . Minutes passed, his dagger upraised and wary, brandished towards the light, knowing nothing but expecting everything. An assault, a flurry of wolves, spiders, or Falmer lurking in the shadows, maws dripping with hunger and eyes wild. There was always something waiting for him, poised to pounce. 

But here there was nothing. And as more time passed, the more his arm grew weary, and the greater the weight pressed down on him, lulling his eyelids to close and leaving the world spinning about him. He shook himself, feeling the ground tip beneath his feet before he stumbled through the webbing, its pieces clinging to his hair and clothes. His vision sharpened, the light grew bright once more, and Ulfric froze.

There was a tree. 

Mangled and ominous, its silvery bark dance across his gaze, wrinkled and ancient yet alive and well. Its branches stretched above, to where the moonlight was strangled away by thick blankets of webs, and to where it arched he could not tell. Its leaves were pale in its green tint, as if it had been permanently sprinkled with frost or ash, smelling sharply of birch. 

Hovering beneath it was a ball of light.

It was small. Pale. Completely unspoiled. 

And brilliant.

A soft, dim hum echoed from it, radiating an odd refreshing chill that caressed his face. He breathed it in, tasting a sweet honey on his tongue. With the taste came bliss, a sudden feather-touch in his body, like smooth nectar flowing around him. His lungs stretched, like unfurling wings, feeling free of ache and ash that clouded his throat.

He  _ breathed _ . 

He hadn’t remembered what it felt like, the taste of  _ fresh air _ on his tongue. It brought back something. A touch of warmth, of pride. The distant scent of mead and candles, of burning meat. He remembered golden light against stone, of booming laughter and of music. He felt the pluck of strings, of hardy singing, and he felt a tune thrum through him as he was the instrument to be played. Words were formed, mangled and dim, but they hummed with the tune. It was familiar; he could nearly sing it, how he expected the melody to continue only a hairsbreadth away. If he reached, if he could hear more--

He stretched his hand towards the light, entranced by its shimmering beauty, and felt the air vibrate and hum around it, pulsing with each whisper of breath. It ducked from his grasp, like an insect fleeing its predator, arching high and out of reach. The heaviness crashed back down upon him. The golden stone left him, along with the scent of meat. He flexed his dry, swollen tongue, but the taste of honey was gone. The music left, fading into the dust. 

He forgot.

Darkness clung back to him, weighing his limbs down, and he fell back into the familiar, ever so slight struggle of breath, as if a fist grasped around his neck and squeezed lightly. That honey-sweet touch to his stomach disappeared.

He blinked and stared at the orb. It glowed innocently beyond reach. He did not try to grasp for it again.

He abandoned it, digging ahead and grumbling as the cobwebs swathed over his knife, the strings so thick and compact they could have formed an entirely new wall. They broke away, their debris slapping onto his face, as he shaved sheet after sheet. Finally, it dissipated beneath him. 

There, swallowed in dust and ash, was a bed. It was simple. Wooden headboard, elegantly carved, although the image itself was cracked and faded. The sheets, had it been another time, would have been handsome, a rich color laced with silver or gold. Now, its color was faded, nigh impossible to decipher with the thread-bare light pouring through, tattered and eaten away by moths and rodents. A thick blanket of dust was its new sheet, and merely coming close to it made his throat itch wildly. 

Ulfric stared at it and breathed out a shallow sigh. Hesitantly, he ran his fingers down its frame, the smooth, polished wood an unfamiliar sight. He fingered the cloth, head buzzing in awe, for it felt so smooth. So different from the rock and the cold. So impossibly different. 

Hands shaking, he stepped towards it and, lips dry with anticipation, he sat on it.

It dipped beneath him, and he almost lurched out, for he thought it would sink below the ground. A horrid groan emitted from beneath it, the frame noticeably shuddering. The cloth shifted and sighed at his legs, like water murmuring below him. His gut shifted uncomfortably as he continued to sink, still feeling as though he was falling, and he stood back up. The bed groaned and shifted back in place, the silhouette of shifted dust the only sign he was there.

He did not try it again. He spun around to find a wall made of stone, and a small dip that seemed comfortable. He shifted himself to settle at it, and there his gut did not squirm so much.

The buzzing of his mind began anew, and the heaviness grew, the world spinning and spinning and never stopping. His ankle continued to throb

With thoughts of fangs flashing in the darkness and dripping blood, the Nord felt his head sink to his chest, and the darkness swelled around him.

* * *

 

When he opened his eyes, he did not see the roof of a cave or, more fittingly, nothing at all. As an unnatural amount of light bled onto his face, and he saw a room he knew nothing about, a structure with cloth he could not understand, and a stiffness to a bones he did not recall, he realized only one thing:

He did not know where he was.

He was at his feet before he knew he was sitting. It was a poor decision. The room lurched around him, spinning feverishly around him and the floor betraying him, dipping and frothing at his feet. He tumbled back down, his head feeling too heavy for his body. His heart thundered feverishly against his chest and he was left there, gasping in breath and sagging against the wall. He flexed his fingers and found that they were crusted over his knife. Its presence was a small comfort, but the fact that his skin stuck to it bewildered him, and he rose his hand and squinted at it.

It was nearly white, smothered in cobwebs and dust. Beneath it there was a thick layer of mud, formed through the filth of Skyrim, melted ice, and blood. The scent of it was foul sent his head careening back and forth. Memories were slow to come to him, as he tried to understand the webs and the blood. He remembered the gnashing of teeth and howls, the thundering heart and the course bark against his fingers. He remembered the beating of wings and the fear, cold and tight, that seized his bones and echoed in them now. He remembered the taste of salt and the rushing waves, and finally the bed, which stared starkly at him now.

It all rushed back to him, and he knew that he was in a place he did not know, his ankle stiff with the makeshift wrappings and crusted blood, and he was so incredibly tired.

The room was still musty, still covered with cobwebs and still as frigid as the land beyond. Ulfric’s vision grew painfully bright and he flinched away, head striking into the stones behind him. A strangled noise escaped his nose, like an irritated huff of air, as his hand pitched upward to knead the swollen bruise, the other flying up to cup over his eyes and provide him time to adjust to the newfound brightness. The brief scent that passed him as his hand waved over his nose was repugnant, rank in rot and blood. It sent his head careening back and forth, stomach shriveling at the foulness of it and begging for food. He tasted only ash on his tongue that stole all moisture, and when he moved his lips, he felt something crack, pain flare, and tasted salt. The hunger, the pain, the thirst--it all was too real.  

This was not a dream. 

He rolled his shoulders back, feeling them pop in their sockets, and he waited for the familiar wave of pain awareness would bring him. Instead, he felt numb. Cold. Not quite to the extent of shivering in his rags, but the chill was settled deep into his limbs and  _ grew _ , like weeds at the roots of a crop. Even his ankle was numb, and all it did was make him tired.

He blinked, heaved in a breath, and sneezed. He glanced down to find cobwebs, nearly blackened with dust, that had snapped off of their parent and fallen onto the unfortunate Nord below. He scowled and brushed them off, many of them rebelliously clinging to his fingers instead. He struggled upward, his leg denying the action stubbornly, and he leaned onto the wall for support.

He felt far more light-headed than he had the previous day. The room bent around him, his legs moving too far behind his body, and the wall tilting too low beneath him. He muttered oaths as he staggered forward, the room tumbling beyond. 

The webs still clung to him. Like fingers, they latched onto his threadbare garments in a vice. He felt pain throb behind his eyes as he glowered down at the webs, clumsily brushing his hand over them. He frowned when, not only did they not release their grip, but they also latched onto his own fingers, white membranes stretching around his skin. He shook his hand, flexing the members in agitation, and watched as the webbing remained.

Further oaths spilled from his lips. He clawed at the webbing with his other hand, the web latching onto it and simply stretching further, refusing to snap. He hissed and struggled further, arms waving about violently. This time, they did not stretch. They clung. And they remained. 

He could not move his arms.

The room spun further as he moved, a dull howling in his ears and a muted wind at his back, as if he was encased in water and ice. His brow twitched and his eyes fluttered open and closed, the room growing dark and light with each moment he breathed. He stared at his hands, squinting through the overwhelming dust and debris. Silver strings encased them, their girth thicker than he had realized. Such strong silver strings. No longer flexible and sticky, they felt as iron coils. He stared at them for a moment longer, strangely entranced by their translucency against the light of dawn.

A breeze touched him. Not as sharp and biting as it so often was, but a soft and gentle breeze, its harshness dulled by the small, crumbling gap within the ruins he dwelled within. Its chill passed through him, tickling his skin, before it faded away. 

The tickling remained. 

Ulfric twitched, the muscles at his back roiling at the itching sensation, and he leaned against the stone wall once more to scratch it, as impaired as he was with his hands.

The feeling that left him did not feel like an itch satisfied. Instead, he felt the itch tumble off of him, a small thing that brushed against his leg in its descent. And he heard a sound. ‘Twas of the faintest of sorts, but it was a sound nonetheless, perhaps of a fallen leaf onto a stone floor. 

He glanced down.

‘Twas a little thing that fell. A small creature, black and covered in tiny hairs. It was no larger than his thumb. Dead from the fall, back flattened against the stone floor, it sported eight little legs, all curled into each other and raised skyward. 

A spider. 

So small it was. So insignificant. 

And suddenly, as he stared at that small creature, he realized what he had not realized the moment he had chiseled the ice from the door and opened it wide.

There were so many spiderwebs.

Ulfric glanced again at his hands. The silvery, translucent string was large, perhaps the girth of his finger; ‘twas so thick.

Too thick for such a small spider to string. 

The dullness of his head, so darkened in pain and hunger, dissipated. The crumbling stone at the soles of his feet he grew aware of, his shoes so worn and thin that he could feel their edges bite at his calloused skin. He no longer saw the tattered stone strewn across the floor or the rotted furniture nestled against the walls. He saw only the silver strings stretched across the room. With the rising sun behind its swath of clouds, light kissed the inside of the ruin Ulfric cursed himself in, and he realized suddenly how many cobwebs there were.

“Too many.”

It was a whisper on Ulfric’s lips, raspy and thin. But it echoed against the stone walls, careening its way down the stairway and into the abyssal darkness. The silver sheets shivered at his whisper, their surfaces swallowing up the room. He breathed as another breeze found its way into the room, shifting the webs in front of him and easing further light into the room. The ash on his tongue grew bitter.

There were things in the webs. Not beyond them, where the wooden furniture lied. Within them. Lumps. Blackened things, swathed with strings and dust. They looked shriveled and malformed. As Ulfric peered further, a glint caught his attention. He leaned closer and found it.

An eye. Clouded and dull. Covered in fur, shriveled and thin against its hide. 

‘Twas dead.

He could not keep the chill from shivering up his tailbone to his back as he saw movement on the silvery strings -- moving shadows against the dark. His feet scraped against the ruined ground as he took a step back. He watched as they moved, eight legs skittering across their sticky bridges, still as small as his thumb.

Three appeared out of the shadows. Then five. Then ten. 

He felt a tickle on his shoulders. His heart faltered in his chest, a sudden ache against his ribs. He became very still, lips parted and a slow, hot breath fluttering out of them. 

The feather-touch weight moved from his shoulder to his back. He shivered and twitched. More spiders were crawling out of their webs. They were gaining in size, placently sitting on their webs, watching him. 

Little legs crawled at his back. The sharp pain in his chest grew, his breath short and hoarse, and he twitched more violently. The weight fell.

A sudden hiss. He heard chittering, a distant, thunderous clicking sound. The spiders grew restless on their seats, front feet curling in and out. He felt something brush against his foot, and then prod at his open wound.

Fire sparked at his leg, sparking along his hip and up to his head. He hissed in air through his clenched teeth, fingers flexing open. He lashed out, foot connecting with something hard and soft, buckling beneath his weight.

A funny little sound came afterward. It first was a hiss, and then it devolved into a sudden squeal, gurgled and rotten. Then, a crack resounded, soft yet sharp against the stone, that shuddered along the room. The spiders all about stilled. 

Below him, Ulfric found a spider crushed beneath his foot, its girth the size of his fist, its legs folded and splayed across the floor, a foul liquid pooling beneath it. An ill-smelling aroma struck him, and he balked at it, feet unconsciously shifting away. His back struck something cold and sticky, its surface clinging to his clothes and skin. 

The spiders began to move. And it was certainly not away from him.

Their legs plucked at the webs and moved them, making them all move like the waves of the Dead Sea. They scuttered down their webs and towards him, tumbling to the ground, hissing and spitting. It steadily grew into an enraged cacophony, and soon, their black bodies enveloped the ground to make it look like a blackened sea, and it was rushing towards him.

Ulfric screamed, it coming out of him like a strangled croak. The wave of spiders was not more than a foot from him, and then they jumped.

Clawing everywhere at his legs. Little spikes and needles, burning into his skin. He cried out and threw about his legs. He watched as their little bodies hurtled in the are, into the webs and walls beyond, sometimes tumbling into the ground and never moving again. Those still on the ground crawled over the bodies until they could not be seen.

He could not move his hands. He could not throw them off. Their hairs brushed against his skin,and they smothered him. He felt resistance at his back as the webbing clung to him, his tunic tight against his form as he struggled against the barrage of hissing beasts. There was prickling at his neck began, and he felt sharp knives dig into his shoulders. He roared and threw himself against the wall once more, the web that clung to him belaying most of his efforts. Streaks of grey flew past his vision, and the weight at his shoulders was gone. Spiders tumbled all about. Enraged hisses greeted him in return. They crawled up his neck, and all he could do was press his lips tightly against each other to keep them from crawling into his mouth.

Then, a low, groaning pitch, at the mouth of the stairwell. 

The spiders stilled, their hisses fading like the wind.

The sudden silence that reached him was just as loud as the cacophony. Ulfric look towards the sound.

Hair. Or fur. Dark and uneven, thrown in patches against thick black skin. It came down against the stairwell. A soft footstep against the stone. And another. And another. The fur continued to move and shift, sliding above the stone, still encased in shadow. 

The silence was deafening, broken only by the footsteps and the roar of blood in Ulfric’s ears. His limbs twitched and ached, and he made a move to shift away, the spiders still against his skin. The footsteps grew louder.

The footsteps ceased. He felt a breeze at his cheek -- the familiar biting, tearing chill that gnawed his skin away. There was no comfort in the breeze, and no comfort in the silence. His heart thundered so strongly he felt as though his chest would burst. He looked.

There, at the mouth of the stairwell, was a spider. And it was the size of a horse.

Its maw dripped, seeping with some foul liquid that spilled to the floor in a puddle. Its fur was covered in webs, crusting over its long, spindly legs like dust. And its eyes were focused on him. Eight blackened orbs, each as large as his head.

They stared at each other. A cloud of mist emitted from Ulfric’s lips with each breath he took. He saw those eyes twitch with emotion, with hunger, and with understanding. The spider’s pincers twitched, liquid still pooling from it. ‘Twas a moment of utter stillness in the air. Ulfric was suffocating, his throat swelling shut as his heart thundered in his head. Light from the outside shifted and blinded him for a brief moment. And it was in that brief moment that he realized the light was too much for a small crack, and there was an opening in the wall. He spared a glance, and he saw it. 

The spider hissed. Ulfric watched the beast tense, and lept towards the light.

The screams and stings began anew. 

Spiders seized him. Ulfric tore at the webbing still clinging to his back, throwing himself against it as his limbs burned. The horse-spider lurched. He found its legs brushing against his nose--Talos, they were big--swatting at his head. They struck, and his head snapped back, feeling as if he had been struck by stone. Ulfric hissed and, in a sudden panic, felt  _ something _ swell in his throat. Spiders clawed at his face as he struggled to swallow it down, the sound of beating wings more furious than the shrieks of a thousand starved beasts. He spun, kicking at the mammoth spider, feeling one of its legs buckle beneath his weight. It shrieked, sounding of a knife scraped against metal, and hastened away. Ulfric lurched again, skin like fire. He tore at the web, its silvery strings stretching with him. He struggled with the coils that bound his hands and wrenched his fingers free from it, a painful heat flaring in his wrists. 

His knife. It was still glued to his fingers. His quivering hands hacked with it, silky and sticky in his palms. Legs and stingers found his face and were crawling along it, the furious hisses drowning out any and all sound in his ears. A snarling noise escaped him and Ulfric began to tear away the webs. His tunic strained against the motion, and he felt it rip. The spiders continued to shriek.

The footsteps returned behind him, a furious and limping thump, and a dominating howl that drowned out the rest. Ulfric’s vision tunneled and he felt spiders crawl near his eyes. He clawed furiously at the webbing, heart pounding so strongly he could no longer feel or hear anything. T’was only noise and screaming and pulling. He felt the stretch of his lips as he opened his mouth; nothing came out. He felt only his fingers pull, and his tunic tear, and the horrible pounding behind him. A warm breath overtook him at his ear, and a brush of fur touched his back.

Suddenly, there was no resistance. The air tore at his face, throwing his hair in front of him, and he swung back. His spine struck something hard and he felt his breath torn away from his lips. Grey and white and a blinding light streaked along his vision. For a moment, he felt weightless. 

The ground collided into him. 

He sputtered, lungs searing in pain as they hastened for air. The room swiveled around him in a dizzying circle, the stone at his stomach swaying like the Dead Sea. All sounds seemed far away, a strange echo in his ear, as his heart thrummed against his skull. Still, he was aware of the spiders hissing about him. The chill ached in his bones.

Webbing still clung to his hands. He swayed to his feet with difficulty, hands bound and strung up with the silver strands. His knees shivered beneath him.

A sudden weight found itself at his shoulder, accompanied by a hiss in his ear. Heavy. It bore him down, to his knees. His body flew before his mind, and he lurched away, towards the gaping hole in the wall. The massive spider behind him shrieked.. Ulfric’s stomach rose to his throat when he found the opening far closer than it needed to be. The spider was pushing too much, too hard. He kicked his feet furiously, struggling to gain purchase on the rock below him.

He realized too late. Soon, there was no more rock below him.

The darkness of the room dissipated, and the light from outside kissed his face.

For a moment, he flew. The full Skyrim chill struck his body and the ruins of the courtyard below him seemed so far away. Then, the moment passed, and the ground was rushing up to meet him.

Then, a fire lept in his shoulders, the skin at his wrist was almost torn away, and his arms snapped above his head as they were held to something that stretched out. It was the side of the tower that rushed to meet him instead, his chest slamming into the stone. His lungs shrunk in, struggling to gasp, as his ribs caved in and crumbled against the stone. He choked on air, mouth opening and closing, struggling to suck in some semblance of air.

A breath. Then another. And another. Short and tender, they burned against his throat, but he breathed, arms strung up above him and feet dangling below him. Head spinning and his eyes spinning over themselves, he arched his head, squeezing his eyes shut and then opening them, waiting for them to focus on his hands.

They were swallowed ever still in the webs. But the webs had curled in on themselves, strung up like a rope, back to the room. He dangled from them, the breeze at his face. He heaved in a breath when he looked below him. The ground still looked so far below him.

When he looked back up, a blackened leg stuck itself out of the hole. Then another. And another. The hissing returned, a long, low utterance that gurgled with its spittle dripping from its maw. The spider stretched its head out of the hole, eight eyes peering hungrily down at Ulfric. Ulfric, who was now dangling out of the room by the string of its own webbing, trapped. He felt his stomach fall to the soles of his feet.

The spider prodded the thread that held him with a leg. He dangled in return. Then, it began to rope him in.

Ulfric snarled and dug his feet into the stone wall. It did nothing for him, for the stone was smooth from the corrosion of Skyrim’s wind and the ice that crusted over it. His feet simply slid along its surface, smooth as glass. Nevertheless, he wriggled. The spider gurgled in response. He found its followers peering over the edge of the opening as well. They began to click excitedly.

Ulfric flexed his hands desperately. His heart began to thunder again -- a furious, uncontrollable pain that exploded against his lungs. He felt a pressure at his tongue. It swelled in his throat, a sudden power in his stomach.  _ Something _ rumbled in his chest, and he strained against the panic, the beating of wings so close to his ears and fire so hot against his skin. It grew in his chest, aching, but he felt the words on his lips.

It was shuddering in his teeth, and he opened his mouth, sucking in air through his nose. 

“Fu--”

Ice.

A spear of ice. Lodged into the spider’s hide.

Its gurgled shriek was cut off with the sound of the sliver of ice sheathing itself into the body of the spider. The creature froze.

Ulfric stared, wide eyed, at its twitching maw.

Then, the spider went slack, and it fell.

He watched, frozen, as it tumbled into the snow, a loud thump that echoed in finality. Its legs folded over itself, and a cloud of white dust fluttering over its body. Then, it was still.

For a moment, there was nothing. Only silence.

The spiders above him began to shriek. 

Ulfric tore his eyes away from the one below to gape at the wave of fur pooling out from the opening. Small and large spiders alike crawled out, swathing the wall in their girth. They careened towards Ulfric, spitting in fury. Ulfric grabbed at the rope, mouth snapping back open.

Then, there was fire. It hissed out, a sudden hot flare against Ulfric’s skin as it seared past him, into the mass of spiders. It consumed them, burning away their flesh, coating the stone in splendorous crimson. The creatures had time to shriek and nothing more before they too tumbled to the ground, their charred remains fluttering away in the wind. The wave of fire stretched upward until it reached the hole, where it pooled in and grew. Ulfric heard the echoing shrieks from within, their cries drowned out by the roar of fire. He saw the reflecting walls aglow with light, until finally, it ceased.

Above him, the webbing began to snap. He looked up and saw a stray golden flame creep towards his web. Ulfric struggled to grab on, but had no time to brace himself. The flame burned the milky substance apart. The burning strain of his arms in his arms left him, and he was weightless. He yelped as the air took him.

Of all the things to land on, it was the horse-spider’s own carcass.

Its body broke much of the impact, but he felt it squelch at his weight, the legs folding over him like a cage. The smell struck him, a foul rotten scent, and the hairs flittered against his face. His skin crawled and he swatted them away viciously, hands still bound, as he struggled to claw himself away from the creature, still warm and belly still wet from its spit. He rolled off, into the snow and remains of smaller spiders, his skin crawling with each sight. The ice clung to his bare skin and melted off, leaving some of the spiders’ legs still stuck to his being. His stomach roiled and his legs carried him away, if not shakily.

He breathed. In and out. In and out. They were short, panicked breaths, and he could not calm them down. His arms quivered like leaves in the breeze as he heaved, fear and panic washing over him in waves. He gasped. In and out. In and out.  _ Something _ was still at his throat, surging with impatience. When he swallowed it down, it seemed to scrape at his insides, screaming like a caged beast.

The wind continued to rake at his back. 

Then, a question struck him.

His head twitched. He swiveled around to gaze at the spiders once more. Indeed, the body of the colossal spider remained, legs still folded over itself, and a dark, foul-smelling liquid pooling from its body into the snow below. Prodding from its body remained a long sliver of ice. Longer than Ulfric, its ends were tapered to points such as spears, one end burrowed deeply into its form, its liquid streaked across the transparent surface in long lines. And indeed, beyond the massive spider, were the remains of its brethren, charred to ash and dotting the snow like ants. 

‘Twas at this moment Ulfric realized that his breath was not alone in the wind. He swiveled his head about.

There, standing in the midst of the collapsed floor in the courtyard of a ruin forgotten, silver hair streaked over his face and brown eyes staring unblinkingly at him, stood a man.

 

**Author's Note:**

> By this date, this story has taken four years to write. Even in those years, I still feel as though it is not yet finished, and nowhere near perfected. This will undergo many drafts, but I appreciate all who bother to read it. You are my drive and passion, and I love you all.


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